Lazy Points of the Week
Recent developments in the (lazy) points and miles world:
Story of the week
Transfer Hawaiian miles to Alaska. It’s finally here: you can now transfer your Hawaiian miles to Alaska using this page. This is HUGE news for Amex users with Membership Rewards points balances looking to take advantage of Alaska’s great reward redemptions, especially from the West Coast to Asia. I was able to transfer my points from Amex to Hawaiian and from Hawaiian onto Alaska in a matter of minutes. However, some people have had apparently had some issues, and AwardWallet has some troubleshooting ideas.
Positive developments for lazy travelers
Google Flights now has trains. Search for a flight, see train tickets. If you are traveling in an area where trains are a viable travel option, Google now has you covered, displaying train options underneath flight results (albeit sometimes without prices). It’s a great development for those who would like to consider train travel but might be too lazy to go searching various train websites to check timetables.
Sign-up bonuses of the week
The Chase Sapphire Preferred is currently offering $300 in Chase travel credit, in addition to the usual 60,000 Ultimate Rewards points, good for $1050 towards the travel of your choice booked via Chase. It’s an excellent deal, but not the best deal on the card this year. The CSP is far from my favorite card, but $1,000+ in free travel is objectively excellent.
Chase’s World of Hyatt card is an excellent hotel card that usually has a complicated bonus structure, requiring new cardholders to spend $15,000 to get the full 60,000-point bonus. Now, you can receive 5 free nights redeemable at a Category 1-4 hotel by spending just $4,000 in the first three months. Because Hyatt stays can be booked for as low as 3,500 points per night at Category 1 hotels off-peak, the points bonus can be stretched further in theory. In practice, in most locations (especially in the US), you would have a hard time turning 60k points into more than six nights or so. So the opportunity to get five nights much more easily and to spend them at higher-end and more expensive properties (because they are redeemable based on the hotel category, not by the going points rate) makes this an ideal opportunity for lazy points fans to pick up this great card.
Other card and points news
Wells Fargo adds another transfer partner. Wells Fargo added to its growing (but still tiny) stable of transfer partners on it’s $95-fee Autograph Journey by adding Virgin Atlantic Flying Club. Virgin points aren’t terribly useful to lazy value travelers, but if you use a service like Thrifty Traveler you will occasionally see a great deal on a flight bookable with Virgin points, so this is a step in the right direction for Journey cardholders to get some extra value and for Wells Fargo to get out of the points basement. Just note: Virgin is moving to dynamic award pricing.
Earn Marriott points and status with Uber. Starting October 14th, Uber users who link their accounts to Marriott will have new earning rates. You can earn on various premium ride options, reserved UberX rides, $40+ food orders, and Uber One subscribers will be eligible for Marriott Silver status (offering 10% more points, priority checkout, and free Wi-Fi).
Transfer Marriott points to Starbucks. Speaking of Marriott, you can now convert Marriott points into Starbucks stars at a 1000:100 ratio. Should you? Probably not, as 1000 Marriott points are worth about $8, while 100 Starbucks stars are worth only around $3. However, if you have a few thousand Marriott points that might expire without being used, this is a decent outlet for them. ☕
Amex and point.me join forces. Amex announced a partnership with award program search engine point.me, including a dedicated Amex/point.me page. If you have specific travel dates in mind, this is an easy way to check to see if there’s a better deal available with mileage. However, to get good mileage deals you usually need to find cheap dates and book your flight around those dates, so this tool will have rather limited utility.
Massages for Sapphire Reserve cardholders. Priority Pass has added XpresSpa to its ranks, offering 25-minute massage chair experiences for Priority Pass members*. That asterisk is there, unfortunately, because your Venture X or Amex Platinum Priority Pass won’t include that benefit; only the Chase Sapphire Reserve includes this benefit for credit card-based Priority Passes.
Fly free within Japan. Japan Air Lines is now offering free domestic flights for international travelers. If you buy a flight from the U.S. to Japan, you can add an additional flight from your initial destination (e.g. Tokyo) to another location within Japan (e.g. Sapporo). You must book via JAL and book all flights in a single booking. JAL flights tend to be expensive, so this is probably not worthwhile as compared to booking JAL with, say, Alaska miles (usually 75k from the West Coast). Still, if you’re planning to visit a more obscure destination in Japan, this could add some convenience and save some money.
Lazy tip of the week
Now is a great time to shop at Walgreens, with Bilt offering bonus points for shopping there with a linked card, and Simplymiles also offering bonus AA miles for spending at Walgreens with any Mastercard (like the Bilt card!).
From the Archive
Have you ever stopped for gas at a Shell station? Did you know you can save 3-5¢ per gallon at Shell without any loyalty card or entering your phone number? Just pay with a linked card. Link, forget, and save.
